Water everywhere on Mars

huge sea of ice lies just under the surface of Mars, ready to be tapped by future explorers as a source of fuel and maybe even drinking water, scientists report. It might also harbour life, and certainly explains where some of the water went when Mars went from being a warm and wet place to the cold, dry desert it is now, the researchers report in this week’s issue of the journal Science. “It turns out it is really quite a bit more ice than I think most people ever really expected,” William Boynton of the University of Arizona, who led one of the studies being published this week, said. Spacecraft sent to Mars in the 1970s probably missed the ice by just a few inches (cm), Boyton said. “The interesting thing is, it looks like the Viking 2 lander actually landed in a region that we think probably had the same ice beneath it,” he said. “If they could have dug down a meter (three feet) deep instead of 10 to 20 cm (four to eight inches) they could have found this ice. Isn’t that interesting? They were probably right on top of it all the time and never had the slightest idea it was there.”